


i've done this befour

by hazelzm



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nostalgia, POV Louis, Past Relationship(s), Post-Zayn One Direction, Solo Artist Zayn, happy ending??, zouis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelzm/pseuds/hazelzm
Summary: zayn recieves an unexpected call in the middle of the night





	i've done this befour

**Author's Note:**

> i found this while going through some old stuff and thought it would be a shame not to post it. it's written and set right after the release of mind of mine, focusing on the track 'befour' and its lyrics. it's honestly just self indulgent and nostalgic, and also completely unbetaed but i hope you like it!

Louis takes another swig from the bottle; it fails to drive away the bitter lump lodged in his throat.

'So say what you wanna say, what you gotta say, now..' fills his ears and his head and he can't get it out. He wants to lose all sense of hearing because he doesn’t want this, doesn’t want to hear-

‘ _Shame is you won’t say that to my face’_

It feels as if he’s been punched in the gut. The direct, harsh impact of the words weigh down on him. It’s an invitation.

Louis can see it now: Zayn, a cigarette dangling from his lips, smelling of aftershave and coffee. Rubbing away the bags under his eyes as he pens the lyrics to Befour. 

It must’ve been different this time: the songwriting process. Different to how it was when he was still in the band. Back then, Zayn would work so hard to write songs for One Direction ‘so I won’t feel like such a dead weight’, he had mumbled to Louis once. Not that they were ever accepted; Zayn’s moody yet meaningful lyrics were often passed for generic, pop tunes about first loves. It was shit; but pop sells. The first time Simon rejected his song, Zayn was inconsolable. Then he learnt not to offer his lyrics at all.

...

Louis remembers a night during their Where We Are tour. They hadn’t been together in weeks. They didn’t want the other boys to find out: to work out what was going on between them when they hardly knew themselves. So when they got this moment: when Liam was being the fitness freak he is and working out; when Harry was out partying with one of his celebrity friends, and Niall was somewhere… probably eating- They took it.

...

Cold.

That’s what Louis registers first. He moans and rolls over, trying to envelop himself into Zayn, only to find him gone. Rushing to sit up, Louis squints across the hotel room before he notices the patio door, slightly ajar. There, sits Zayn, the glow of burning amber at his mouth, crouched over the table. Louis tiptoes outside. He lowers himself into Zayn’s lap, wrapping his arms around his small but strong frame as he does so. Louis presses his face into the crook of Zayn’s neck, tongue darting over the marks he left there a few hours ago.

‘They’re disgusting,’ Zayn says teasingly.

‘Didn’t see you complaining when I gave them to you,’ Louis quips back.

Zayn leans back, hair flopping in front of his face. He grins down at Louis: the playful curve of his mouth and the soft fondness of his eyes. It may be the middle of the night, but Louis is convinced he has never seen anything so radiant.

They stay curled like that for hours. This part of town is silent; the only noise comes from birds and the soft scratching of Zayn’s pen. After a while the sun is starts to appear, leaving an array of colours across the sky. Zayn stretches out his arms.

‘Come on, then,’ he sighs, gesturing towards the door.

Louis however, was otherwise occupied. The table was littered with pages, all filled with black ink. Curiously, Louis reaches his arm forward to pick one up; instead he is met with Zayn’s hand.

‘Later, yeah?’ Zayn whispers, clasping together with Louis’. ‘Be a surprise.’

‘A good surprise?’ Louis asks.

‘The best. You’ll see,’ Zayn smiles back at him. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘Come on.’ His hazel eyes are glinting mischievously as he throws Louis over his shoulder, which was more difficult than Zayn would care to admit. Shrieking, Louis pounded his fists at Zayn’s back, laughing hysterically as they both made their way back inside.

‘I’ve done this before.. Not like this..’

...

The soft sound of Zayn’s voice transports Louis back to reality. Back to this cruel world, where he and Zayn are now strangers.

Louis thought he had lost Zayn and everything he thought his best friend was on the 25th of March 2015. But as he listens to Befour, he realises he was wrong. His mind skims back to a tweet he remembers seeing; one he had initially scoffed at: ‘Nothing changed, you just never knew.’ It describes Zayn perfectly, and Louis wants to cry out at how stupid he was, how oblivious he was to all the signs.

Louis lets out a bitter laugh. He had spent the last year breaking himself into shards and then having to piece himself back together. Learning to live without Zayn was like learning how to breathe underwater, and he had almost drowned. So much had happened in the past year. He had to deal with a stream of abuse from the media and fans alike, had to accept the new responsibility of being a _father_ (what the fuck?), had to record and promote an album he could care much less about.. All without Zayn.

Yet. Here was Zayn, pleading with him. Begging with him. Louis tries to deny it, but he can’t: it’s in every syllable of the song.

He had at first scorned Zayn when he mentioned ‘feeling creatively suffocated’ as a reason for his departure. Typical art hoe Malik, he had thought. But he gets it now. This is everything Zayn wanted to do but was prevented from doing. This is the result of coffee tables littered with pages of lyrics. He understands now. Zayn is an artist. And Louis feels ashamed to have ever thought otherwise.

Finishing his bottle, he tosses it onto the carpet and reaches for another. As he does so, he notices the glint of his phone buried in the covers. The lyrics are still blasting in his ears ‘Say what you wanna say, what you _gotta_ say, now’. Pleading, begging. Louis sucks in a breath.

It flashes before him: ‘best mates, yeah Lou?’, hazel eyes glinting in the dark, pink tongue poking out between his teeth as he smiled, the same tongue between Louis’ lips as they rolled onto the floor, moans and murmurs, passionately long nights, lazy, weed-filled days, sharp cheekbones and hollowed cheeks, the inking of **BUS 1** on the side of his hand, and the giggly promise of ‘forever and always’ they had made before they realised they weren’t young and invincible -- ‘Partners in crime, Malik’

The number is dialled. He taps the screen. Shakily, he brings the phone up to his ear. _Ring. Ring. Rin-_

 

‘Lou?’

**Author's Note:**

> i do love a cliffhanger


End file.
